last updated:13 Mar 2003 11: 12 Webword time, or 13 Mar 2003 16:12 UK time
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(Comments added for week ending Sun 09 Mar 2003) | View Other Weeks
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| Usability Law | Sat 08 Mar |
| There are a number of ways that the law impacts on the usability of software and its evaluation. (Comments: Thanks Richard Griffiths.) |
| Sat 08 Mar 21:44 | John S. Rhodes | Mr. Richard N Griffiths |
| Sun 09 Mar 18:14 | Lyle Kantrovich | The introduction for this piece promises more than the lecture notes deliver. This is really just a laundry list of laws and regulations (mostly from the UK) that this lecturer finds specific or 'relevant' to usability. One is left to read into the things highlighted, since there's no discussion on how or why the author finds these laws relevant. It might be a great set of notes for discussion in a classroom, but I didn't find it very interesting as a stand-alone piece.
First, it leaves out a very important question for debate: How much and what should governments legislate in regards to usability? What balance should be struck between regulation and market-driven results? Given the amount of debate within the HCI community over ROI, methods, and what's 'right' in general, how would governments create legislation that would work? Isn't there the risk that the legislation would be either so high level as to be ineffective or full or loopholes (to be exploited by corporations, agencies, and lawyers alike), or the legislation would be so specific that we limit innovation and market freedoms (e.g. All links MUST be blue, all the time!)?
Secondly, and most importantly, the author includes a laundry list of 'human rights' that he thinks should be included in a discussion of usability. He says 'as software embeds its self into more and more of the artefacts and systems that support civil life, the possibility of infringing human rights should be born in mind.'
In my opinion, torture, slavery, and forced labour are not things that usability professionals deal with. To imply that non-usable systems torture people (if that's what the author intended) is truly taking it way too far. The over-the-top rhetoric that usability advocates take up at times doesn't help our cause - rather it makes us look like unreasonable zealots.
People in third world countries deal with human rights violations all the time - they are really tortured bodily, psychologically, and culturally (for example, talk to the Kurds in Iraq). We show little respect for victims of real torture when we imply that a non-usable system is 'torture.'
Third, the author implies that laws actually make a difference in the usability of software. Where is the proof? To what extent do laws have an impact? We have many laws against crime, in many different countries, yet there are millions of crimes committed every year, and billions and billions of dollars spent every year to enforce the criminal codes in place. Poor usability is NOT a crime, and is a less important issue in the world. One must ask, what is the 'return' on laws related to usability? Should we have more or less of these laws? Or do we as 'usability advocates' just want usability at any cost?
As a someone trying to champion usability in industry, I find that usability advocates are only taken seriously when they can be pragmatic. When we are rational, and give and take when the situation calls for it, then we can be effective. |
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| Why content management software hasn't worked | Wed 05 Mar |
| (Gerry McGovern) But do you need such software? Most companies dont. I know organizations that are successfully running massive websites with Microsoft FrontPage. They can do this because they have excellent editors and writers, and because they have well-defined, well-policed publishing processes and policies. (MadMan comments: How do excellent editors and writers help in workflow and logistical problems of having reporters around the country contributing content? How could a site like News.com run on Frontpage? Has Gerry lost it?) |
| Thu 06 Mar 01:32 | Chi Lambda | I think the key statement is this: 'But do you need such software? Most companies don't.'
News.com, Knight-Ridder and Amazon.com probably 'need such software' but I also think that many organizations don't.
It probably depends on a number of factors, including the number of writers in the field, # of customers, website options/features, etc. |
| Thu 06 Mar 08:57 | Anonymous | I read that quote several times, and it didn't strike me that Gerry was talking about reporters, writers, and editors in the traditional journalistic sense. Most companies aren't news companies.
But why not? Content submissions, workflow, and editing could all be done via email. A production person could cut and paste the final versions into templates setup in FrontPage. This is Gerry's point, I think - that a CMA doesn't have to encompass the whole process.
The limitations of FrontPage would come sooner from the size and scale of the site.
But, any good discussions around this notion will quickly be killed by the ubiquitous FrontPage bashers... |
| Thu 06 Mar 08:58 | Shane | To add to Chi Lamda's supposition, many small and medium sized companies find that it's less expensive to employ a person to act as a CMS than it is to purchase, install, customize, configure and support a full-blown CMS package. |
| Thu 06 Mar 09:46 | Anonymous | The technology sector needs a serious reality check. Managers and executives have a chronic optimism around what software can do.
I've worked at 3 companies in the last 10 years. Each one of them tried to implement ERP and failed (multiple times, usually).
Each one of them tried to implement an enterprise CMS and failed (or descoped it 80%). Finally, each one of them tried to implement an eCommerce or CRM solution and failed. Most of these companies are still at it, on their 3rd or 4th go-around at implementing these technologies.
We're talking a LOT of money being pissed away folks; shareholders should be outraged.
I may seem hard to believe, but I think that these failure rates are by far the NORM rather than the exception. My take-aways:
* Whenever possible, avoid implementing software solutions that require customized config/coding, i.e. professional services vendors. (Sadly, this drives everyone toward out-of-the-box packages, which means that MS will probably win with Great Plains down the road). You think your company should be afraid of custom home-grown solutions? At least there your staff usually has a decent handle on the flaws and shortcomings. With customized software implemented by outside vendors, your staff won't have a clue of how to maintain it.
* Don't believe that conceptual crap that you have a 3-legged stool consisting of people, processes and technology. As if each of these is equivalent. It would be more accurate to say that you have a 6-legged stool and 3 legs are people, 2 are process, and 1 is technology.
* The progression to enterprise software hell is:
in-house staff --> contractors/vendors --> vendors --> foreign workers.
This is just shifting the problem. If you can't implement & maintain a software system in-house, you have a more fundamental problem at your company. If you think you can export/abdicate the responsibility of fixing that problem, your company is already a captive.
Gerry McGovern did a decent job pointing out some of the problems. The shame is that there is so little awareness of the problems that his article actually seems radical. |
| Thu 06 Mar 18:18 | vbull | CMS software helps organisations solve some fundamental problems around consistency and accessibility. By automating the content development and management process, organisations have the ability to ensure that every page is accessible, consistent etc - and allows restrictions that are not possible within FP and other such software. |
| Thu 06 Mar 20:38 | Lydia | I have seen a lot of the same things Satchel talked about. Part of the problem is that management gets so excited about what the software could potentially do that they turn a blind eye to the fact that it will only do that if everything, including the human element, works together perfectly, which just can't happen in the real world.
And, perhaps due to the same excitement, they implement EVERYTHING at once, instead of integrating and introducing in stages with some beta/load testing first to identify the most obvious weak spots. So, employees have to learn everything virtually overnight )while still performing their usual job-related tasks) on a system that probably has a poor user interface and runs slowly because it wasn't configured right.
Then they have to call in the consultants, and that's where the real money hemmoraging begins.
I think a CMS works very well for companies that employ a lot of freelance talent or have a lot of home-based workers, where ownership becomes a critical issue to job satisfaction. Even if the person isn't terribly web-savvy, they can learn how to use a single application and deploy their information on their own schedule. |
| Fri 07 Mar 04:37 | Alan Fisher | Satchel hits several nails squarely on the head. I've worked in the IT industry for over 20 years, and the only large-scale project I've worked on which could be counted a success was the very first one, back in 1982. Since then, I've worked on a number of ambitious projects, mainly in the financial sector. Every one of them has either failed completely, or ended up compromising their original intentions so thoroughly that the user probably wouldn't have started on the project in the first place if they'd known what they were going to get. As Satchel says, we waste huge amounts of money on software projects which never deliver. And yes, I do mean WE - it's partly our fault.
One of the things which has depressed me in recent years is that we now have a whole new generation of software developers and technologies, and they are repeating the same fundemental mistakes in running projects which we had in the 80s and early 90s. As an industry, we seem to believe that since the technology has moved on so much, the experience of previous technology 'generations' isn't relevant. But the fundementals of running a good project don't change with technology changes. |
| Fri 07 Mar 07:11 | Anonymous | 'One of the things which has depressed me in recent years is that we now have a whole new generation of software developers and technologies, and they are repeating the same fundemental mistakes in running projects which we had in the 80s and early 90s.'
This doesn't really put the knowledge work industry in a good light, either. CMS is basically workflow management. The content doesn't really get measured or managed, now does it? It doesn't improve or unify writing styles around a certain viewpoint, suggest the real story is something other than what it being written, or anything else which would fall under 'content management.' |
| Fri 07 Mar 09:30 | Anonymous | The most interesting point Gerry does, I think, is not the fact that CMS fails (sometimes). We all knew that. It is that he gives an alternative - or, more realistic, that he says what every publishing process needs no matter what technology it rests on: writers, editors...
The interesting discussion is not FrontPage or CMS. It is who we think should publish? And even though the 'modern' technology promises that everyone can do that, all my experience shows that administrators, salespeople, middle management needs unrealistic amounts of training to do what one or two professional publishers can achieve. |
| Fri 07 Mar 12:56 | Anonymous | 'CMS software helps organisations solve some fundamental problems around consistency and accessibility. By automating the content development and management process, organisations have the ability to ensure that every page is accessible, consistent etc - and allows restrictions that are not possible within FP and other such software.'
Malarkey. Vendor speak. Marketing Babble.
Restrictions are easy in FrontPage. You simply buy one copy give it to one person who enforces the restrictions and produces the web content. That's what an 'editor' is, and this is Gerry's point - you don't need a CMS to have a content management process, you don't need a CMS to have consistency, and you don't need a CMS to have accessibility.
All you *really* need are people for whom those things are important. |
| Fri 07 Mar 19:21 | daniel szuc | Alan Fisher says: 'But the fundementals of running a good project don't change with technology changes.'
Totally agree! |
| Fri 07 Mar 19:26 | daniel szuc | Additionally, if companies would consider speaking to their users first or looking at the existing systems that exist, they may re-think whether the NEW technology purchase is really required. Very often its a case of wanting a new and perhaps unnecessary layer of technological toys. |
| Sun 09 Mar 17:16 | PeterV | John, consider that the BBC news site (at least until recently) didn't have a CMS at all - just a bunch of talented sysadmins to keep the system going. Think about it. |
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| Courting The (Online) Customer | Sat 08 Mar |
| Youd think e-businesses would know the value of customer service, but too many of them dont. Whether by ignoring customer e-mail or designing less-than-usable Web sites, many online outfits seem to have lost sight of their main assets. (Comments: Thanks Daniel Szuc.) |
| Sun 09 Mar 01:19 | Anonymous | No thanks, I'm already married. |
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| Five Reasons to Hope | Sat 08 Mar |
| New techologies that may help Silicon Valley rise again. |
| Sun 09 Mar 00:25 | daniel szuc | Interfaces for micro devices is an interesting one, in that you have no 'direct' feedback from a micro device. 'Remote control' interface design perhaps? |
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| Local Googles try to second-guess user preferences | Wed 05 Mar |
| He said he doesnt use it anymore. Somewhat shocked to hear this I asked why. He said Google now has a Hungarian version - my father is in Budapest - and even when he goes to www.google.com (as opposed to, say, www.google.hu) the search engine defaults to Hungarian sites which bothers him tremendously as most of his searches are aimed at English language content mostly based in the US or the UK. So he stopped using it. (WebWord Comment: Google and Branding.) |
| Thu 06 Mar 17:39 | Zef | Here in NZ it also redirects from google.com to google.co.nz - which on occassions I have found annoying. However, Google doesn't redirect if you visit any other domain including google.co.uk or google.com.au - so perhaps it's just the .com one to avoid! |
| Thu 06 Mar 18:46 | Eszter | That's an interesting observation. There is one problem though, there is no such thing as google.co.us so if you want to focus on the US you have to go to google.com but then that redirects. Hmmmm...
I've forwarded the note to someone who hopefully has passed it on to the relevant people at Google. |
| Sat 08 Mar 04:26 | Anonymous | I've found that the best way to prevent google from doing the thinking for me is to block its cookies. A search engine doesn't need my personal information to give me great results.
Google is the only site in my 'restricted site zone'. Doing this hasn't affected its search accuracy. |
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| Stupidity should be cured, says DNA discoverer | Sat 01 Mar |
| Fifty years to the day from the discovery of the structure of DNA, one of its co-discoverers has caused a storm by suggesting that stupidity is a genetic disease that should be cured. (Comments: Law for the Protection of Hereditary Health) |
| Tue 04 Mar 03:41 | Philip Chalmers | In the long term Watson is right in suggesting we should look for a genetic cause of stupidity and, if possible, a cure.
Look at the alternatives:
* Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes's opinion was an attempt to find a humane and just solution with the technology available in 1926.
* The rich and powerful will eventually get such treatments (and the beauty treatment, if discovered). If their existence is not publicised and they are not made widely available to those who need it most, we wind up with Brave New World. |
| Fri 07 Mar 15:21 | Dennis G. Jerz | If I recall correctly, in _Brave New World_, the Beta, Gammas, and Deltas were all deliberatley damaged -- thus making the Alphas de facto superhumans. Huxley was talking about deliberately creating several tiers of slave races, engineered to be happy with its work. Huxley's fictional world needed _more_ stupid people. His operative vision was not eugenic but rather dysgenic.
Intelligence does not guarantee moral superiority. Smart people can be evil, and 'stupid' people (who don't score well on standard intelligence tests) can excel in other ways (though they don't necessarily *have* to, and often will not).
The 'problem' Holmes was responding to hasn't turned out to be a problem. Predictions based on Malthusian population projections (the idea that population increases exponentially while food increases mathematically) have been disproven numerous times. |
| Fri 07 Mar 23:47 | Dennis G. Jerz | Sorry, obviously that should be 'arithmetically' rather than 'mathematically' in the above post. |
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| Guerilla Research with Web Site Audiences | Wed 05 Mar |
| Usability and account planning share a common mission: They are advocates for the audience. (Comments: For some reason, the word audience bothers me.) |
| Thu 06 Mar 09:15 | Dennis G. Jerz | 'For some reason, the word audience bothers me.'
Why is that? Is it because 'audience' has connotations of passivity? |
| Thu 06 Mar 13:02 | George Olsen | Well some folks go on extended rants about describing people as 'users'... Just a legacy of the convergence of our fields. Account planners come from advertising and that's the way they're used to saying things.
If you've seen Mitch's presentation, it's clear there are significant parallels, as he described in the article.
OTOH, I think there's some use in the shades of meaning between 'users,' 'audiences' and 'viewers' -- which correspond nicely to the do-understand-experience dimensions involved in interactive design.
It can be helpful in getting folks to understand different parts of a site/application/etc. behave differently, for example, some parts _are_ marketing messages aimed at 'audiences,' others parts are transactional/interactional involving 'users,' and sometimes yes there are even parts to sites that might be primarily about where 'viewers' go to have an interesting experience. The problems with/invective hurled at Flash usually involve mismatched expectations about these usages.
Granted 'audience' and 'viewer' have increasing overtones of passivity, but they're useful none the less. |
| Thu 06 Mar 19:59 | John S. Rhodes | Why is that? Is it because 'audience' has connotations of passivity?
In short, yes. |
| Thu 06 Mar 20:20 | Dennis G. Jerz | I think George made some good comments.
Since my academic training includes studying dramatic literature, and I've done amateur theater, I don't think an 'audience' is necessarily passive. A performer definitely gets energy from an audience's gasps, laughs, etc. Even their restlessness provides feedback. And composition theory refers to 'audience' all the time, with the understanding that good writing engages the reader critically and intellectually.
I tend to think of 'audience' in general terms, as 'all the people who might be interested in reading/using/visiting a website,' while I think of 'visitor' when I think of the individual person's set of activities while interacting with a site.
Just my $.02. |
| Fri 07 Mar 12:59 | Anonymous | Audience is out. Customer is in.
A customer--for whatever reason--chooses to visit your storefront. Once inside, the customer moves through your store of his own free will. He generally wants to look, touch and assess things on his own. He'll welcome your direct contact only when he has a question or comment.
I can't say I've ever walked into a store, sat down in a chair amongst other customers and had store employees parade products and information in front of me. |
| Fri 07 Mar 13:00 | Anonymous | Audience is out. Customer is in.
A customer--for whatever reason--chooses to visit your storefront. Once inside, the customer moves through your store of his own free will. He generally wants to look, touch and assess things on his own. He'll welcome your direct contact only when he has a question or comment.
I can't say I've ever walked into a store, sat down in a chair amongst other customers and had store employees parade products and information in front of me. |
| Fri 07 Mar 14:16 | George Olsen | Dennis raises a good point, and in fact I used to be involved in interactive fiction in the early 1990s, so I'm more than a bit familiar with literary/interpersonal communications theory.
As Dennis points out, 'receivers' are rarely truly passive -- they can choose to accept the intended meaning ('deconstructionism' goes way overboard on this) and otherwise react. A classic example are campy movies. Ed Wood thought 'Plan 9 from Outer Space' was a horror movie, audiences disagreed.
However, the type of engagement of 'audiences' is typically pretty different than 'users' -- for lack of better term, we called this the difference between 'lean back' (TV/movies) and 'lean forward' (computer usage/videogames). Enabling a smooth transition between these two types of flow was a critical problems interactive fiction never really did solve.
I should point out that being a user, audience, viewer or customer aren't mutually exclusively. Even though Swank may have taken a self-directed path through the store, he/she was undoubtedly taking the various advertising displays.
Likewise, I've been a saleperson and Swank is really expressing his/her personal preference to be left alone. I recently bought running shoes and while I made the initial choice, when that didn't fit, the salesperson did in fact suggest alternatives and brought out different shoes until we found a fit.
Especially on higher ticket items (I sold suits), customers often do appreciate having store employees provide products and information (assuming of course the salesperson knows what they're talking about and isn't trying to hard-sell the customer.)
Most salespeople do a lousy job, but the good ones use their own version of UCD. I'd find out what goals the customer had in mind (what did they need a suit for, what budget they had, what their tastes were etc.) and try to find something that suited their needs. That might also include selling them a shirt and tie that matched the suit. This wasn't just upselling, it might also be because I discovered this was a guy who never had a suit and therefore didn't have tie, or last bought polyester one in the 1970s, or who planned to wear a checked shirt with a striped suit to a job interview.
There's actually a lot of good analogies that can be from the customer service industry about provide a good user experience. They're both about interactions. |
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| WebWord Comment | Sat 01 Mar |
| Should I censor what people post on WebWord? |
| Mon 03 Mar 08:57 | Joshua Kaufman | It all comes down to ownership. Who's website is this? Is this John's website or is this our website?
If this is John's website, then sure, he can censor anything he wants. It's his site; he decides what's on it. (However, I would strongly suggest moderation far before censorship. If you open up your website to discussion and comments they can't be successfully moderated then you probably shouldn't have open discussion in the first place.)
If this is our website, then censor nothing. |
| Mon 03 Mar 09:12 | Anonymous | If this is our website, do what I say. |
| Mon 03 Mar 09:20 | studiodino | I’m not for censorship on a public forum paid by tax payers and such, but in a private forum I think you have the right to change things. You own the web site, you paid the bills and you, perhaps, want to maintain a site of professionalism without the non-sense criticism that nether promote learning and understanding. Constructive criticism diplomatically will go a long way with your audience than profanity. |
| Mon 03 Mar 09:51 | Adam Greenfield | Dino, I'm sorry, I don't buy that discourse of tightpantsed 'professionalism.'
I'm unabashedly a Cluetrain baby: this is how we speak in real life, face to face, and I shan't pretend otherwise online to look all clean-shaved and employable. |
| Mon 03 Mar 11:19 | Anonymous | I think studiodino was thinking it would be nice if people treated each other with simple respect, instead of going off half-cocked, choosing to insult and belittle instead of discuss ideas like adults. |
| Mon 03 Mar 11:23 | Anonymous | By the way, studiodino, I'd love to see your photo developed into a comic strip. |
| Mon 03 Mar 15:48 | Lydia | John, I think you should definitely moderate the site and ask people to take flame wars off-line. Part of the reason I come here is to see intelligent, topical discussion about usability issues and the occasional non-usability interest. I don't come to see kids slapping at each other in the sandbox.
Obviously, it would be ideal if everyone could treat each other with respect and avoid obviously inappropriate statements that could be misconstrued or would probably piss someone off and start a back-and-forth. The real world, however, is not ideal.
As for censorship, I feel it has its place. Think about the type of site you want and act accordingly. Yes, we are all adults, but some of us look at this site during work hours. I will never forget the day I pulled up a discussion thread and saw a picture of a naked man doing something I didn't want my co-workers to see. When my boss - my boss - asked me what I was looking at, I had to explain that this had never happened before, show him the other areas of the site and the links posted, and prove that it was a 'legit' thing to be doing during my spare moments at work.
That's an extreme example, of course (and, as I recall, it was taken down later and I haven't seen the same sort of thing since). It is really easy for a few people to upset the cart for everyone, though, whether intentionally or not. Some people just like to be s**t stirrers.
To put it another way, what if someone started a thread on child porn? You'd take that down as fast as you could press the delete key, right? (I hope?) So, censorship does have its place. So, find the 'comfort level' and start there.
For example, let's say cursing is okay, but talking about sexual acts isn't. Someone starts talking about how doing one thing is like some obscene sex act (BTW, I had written an example here, but decided to take it out because, well, I don't want to offend!! ha ha). You could decide to leave the comment in, but post something asking people to cease and desist or it will be removed. In your post, you could explain why it is not appropriate to say this. This type of moderating would (a) let everyone know you are aware of it, thereby encouraging a work-friendly atmosphere and (b) hopefully kill any useless back-and-forth and return people to discussing the main topic.
Sorry this is so long. Just one more thing!
As for censoring an individual person, my personal feeling is that this isn't a good idea unless the person persists in inappropriate behavior after you have pointed out that it shouldn't be done, and it is disrupting the community. While I might not agree with the way some people conduct themselves, it's their reputation one way or the other. As long as they are staying within guidelines, they may be as abrasive or as childish as they want. If, for example, they prefer to lash out when challenged instead of respecting other points of view enough to ask 'what do you mean' in a respectful way, so be it. They'll either be ignored or encouraged, and it is up to each individual to decide their response.
In closing, I think that you have done a great job of keeping things both casual and work-friendly so far, John. It would be a shame to see the discussions at WebWord get so out of hand that you have to resort to a registration system or start hacking away at postings and banning IP addresses, so I'm all in favor of a little hand-slapping and GIF/JPG censoring from time to time. The nice thing about usability folks is that we are generally a passionate lot, and hopefully we can also remember that respect and good manners is still a worthwhile skill that is worth spreading around. |
| Mon 03 Mar 15:53 | Lydia | Oh, I should clarify that the naked man picture referenced above was posted by someone in the comments area to describe what they thought of the current topic, not as one of the main links on the site!! |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:23 | Anonymous | NO |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:46 | Manu Sharma | All excellent points, Lydia.
My solution? I propose two:
- user-empowered moderation or
- moderation based on rules
See comments in the other post for more. |
| Mon 03 Mar 21:46 | Anonymous | Ohh yea...let's start a committee.
Hummph - rating posts/posters. Who has the time? |
| Tue 04 Mar 08:04 | Anonymous | No cencorship. Please. |
| Tue 04 Mar 08:49 | Anonymous | However, censorship is fine. Please, save us from the screaming meanies. |
| Wed 05 Mar 19:12 | Anonymous | So John, what's your verdict? Should you censor what people post on WebWord? |
| Wed 05 Mar 22:06 | John S. Rhodes | I'll censor, but only under extreme circumstances. I determine 'extreme circumstances' although I might ask WebWord readers for their opinions. |
| Fri 07 Mar 00:31 | Dennis G. Jerz | How about posting some kind of warning on the home page, and then letting users choose an alternative 'safe for when the parson is visiting' version of the thread? Users who don't want to be offended would actively choose the sanitized version, and that's a far cry from censorship. Would the extra coding that would require be worth it? |
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| Nag-O-Matic | Wed 05 Mar |
| (Business 2.0) I never thought Id actually get to meet Big Brother. And if I did, I never imagined hed look like B.J. Fogg, a cheerful young Stanford University researcher whos pioneering a new field of study that he calls captology the science of using technology to modify human behavior. |
| Wed 05 Mar 23:15 | Blaine | Captology, guess I better remember that word, seems to becoming more and more common, even if its not highly publicized. |
| Thu 06 Mar 01:02 | Anonymous | The interview that never was. Scrubbed clean from the face of WebWord. |
| Thu 06 Mar 09:26 | studiodino | Jakob Nielsen's Review of B.J. Fogg's new Persuasive Technology book:
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/20030303.html |
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| Voicemail Password Gripes | Tue 04 Mar |
| I hate the telephone. It is an archaic piece of technology thats doing all it can to not be replaced by the computer. Consider voice menus. An effeminate Stephen Hawking reading you the menu options at a pace thatll literally make you wonder how far weve come with this piece of shit called voice menus, and how much farther we wouldve been if telephones were equipped with menu displays. |
| Tue 04 Mar 23:00 | Frank Lynch | I think my biggest telephone usability gripe is that you can't retract one mis-pressed digit, vs. starting over completely.
I also remember (this may no longer be true) a story Martina Navratilova once told on Letterman, that she needed to call the emergency number from a phone booth in the UK, and IIR she said the number there was not 911, but three high digits like 999; and the phone was a rotary dial.
Also, a personal anecdote. Years ago a colleague here in NY needed a number phoned in from a colleague in the UK, over a weekend; we had no direct dial numbers in the company, but the voice response system assured all callers they could access anyone's voice mailbox by first dialing the first letter of the last name. The colleague in the UK stared at his phone in disbelief, complete confusion, since lettered keypads had not arrived.
Lastly, an HBR cartoon I can only mention (I couldn't find it online, sorry): a person is listening to the VRS: 'If you would like to press 'one', press 'one'. If you would like to press 'two'...'
None of this has any value. Sorry. I felt the need to type. |
| Wed 05 Mar 11:38 | Gerald | I can't see the difference between phones and PC/network accounts that enforce monthly new passwords (with the same nerving restrictions). They force you to write down your password, to build memorizable passwords or to harass customer service with passwort recovery. Not really desirable incidents. |
| Wed 05 Mar 13:43 | Francis Wu | Gerald, you're right, there isn't much of a difference except for the fact that the aggravation is compounded by the use of voice menus :).
On another note, the company for which I work for got this link through the grapevine and thought for a second that I was actually bashing them. I explained that this was merely a usability issue. They then explained to me that the password rules were a means to protect themselves against voicemail fraud. Yeah, voicemail fraud sucks too, but at the end of the article, even the specialist says that it can be easily prevented by simply using a better (longer) password. Said nothing 'bout changing passwords over and over again. |
| Wed 05 Mar 13:49 | Francis Wu | Frank, most cordless and cell phones allow you to type and edit the phone number before actually placing the call. Great feature, although I have to admit I sometimes forget to click 'send' or 'call' or whatever dial button is. |
| Wed 05 Mar 17:39 | Philip Chalmers | An example of how password rules can be self-defeating - at one place I worked everyone wound up using passwords of the form MMMYYYY, e.g. MAR2003 - so for all but a few says each month everyone was using the same password.
If it's important, use biometrics, e.g. iris patterns (see http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/27/1046064145169.html, posted in webword on Sat 1 Mar 2003. Otherwise let people choose passwords they can remeber and don't force frequent changes. |
| Thu 06 Mar 05:16 | Alan Fisher | Frank,
Your first comment above led me to wonder why the UK's emergency service number is 999, while the USA uses 911. In the days when emergency calls were first introduced, 999 would have been the most time consuming to dial, since all phones had a rotary dial and the 9 required a full turn of the dial. A clear usability problem, no?
The answer is that the UK introduced emergency calls to a specific number in 1937. This was the first such service in the world, but it faced problems with the relatively primitive telephone technology of the time. They were going to use 111, but it was found that this number was often dialed by faulty telephones. They also considered 222, but this was the number of one of the biggest exchanges in London, which would have had to be closed down. They eventually decided on 999 because it was easy to remember, not already in use for anything else and almost impossible to mis-dial. Anyone who remembers the old rotary-dial phones will have had the experience of fingers slipping from the dial before you intended, resulting in a 3 being dialled instead of a 4 (or whatever). Fortunately, they haven't been used in the UK for years now.
There's a usability case study somewhere in this. |
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| Which Price is Right? | Wed 05 Mar |
| (Fast Company) It is an urgent question: How can we increase profits if we cant raise prices? The answer demands revolutionary thinking new insights about strategy and human behavior, turbocharged with software, mathematics, and rapid-fire experimentation. Is your company ready to master the new era of pricing? |
| Wed 05 Mar 21:16 | mcw | Good article. Lots of businesses spend much time on costs but not so much on pricing, especially manufacturing companies. |
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| Is Microsoft deliberately sabotaging their user experience? | Fri 28 Feb |
| (Croc o Lyle) I believe Capitalism works, I dont think Microsoft is evil, and I dont use Opera, but after reading Opera borks MSN in standards spat I cant say Im impressed with the folks at Microsoft and MSN. |
| Mon 03 Mar 04:59 | Philip Chalmers | Mark's suggestion that it may an honest mistake is the first balanced posting in this topic.
Cross-browser coding is probably harder now than it was when most developers only worried about IE4 and Netscape 4. It's very difficult to keep track of which version of which browser has which CSS bug. See the discussion of hacks for the IE5 box-model problem at http://glish.com/css/hacks.asp
And sometimes the W3C doesn't help - http://www.evolt.org/article/Mission_Impossible_mouse_position/17/23335/ describes an apparent ambiguity in a standard (Document Object Model) which different browser-makers have interpreted differently.
Perhaps the decelerating rate at which users upgrade browser (http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990418.html - referenced by Croc o' Lyly) give the W3C the chance to raise its game to the level of the major language standards (FORTRAN, COBOL, C, etc.), where each standard is published with a validation suite - this would reduce ambiguities almost to vanishing point. |
| Mon 03 Mar 11:28 | Anonymous | Things would be considerably easier if we had a browser emulator. My support for versions of IE is worse because it's so much more difficult to have multiple versions of IE installed on the same machine. |
| Tue 04 Mar 03:52 | Anonymous | >'I believe Capitalism works'
> 'I don't think Microsoft is evil'
>Based on these two statements, why would I even want to consider reading what >else this author is trying to say?
I agree with these statements, although I hate Microsoft's attitude, and I know all the tricks they can use, wich are not even advertised, to keep users to them. But I just believe that this is a natural human reaction. When you have power, or a quasi-complete monopoly, you just keep using it in your own interest. And with the power you gain, it can become more and more effective.
Why do you think Netscape crashed? I remember, working for a small ISP back in 1996, the choices were: make 10.000 install CDs with Netscape (cost: 4$ per Netscape license + 10.000$ to pay the CDs), or make 10.000 CDs with IE 2.0 (sux, but it's free) and, BTW, *receive* 25.000$ from Miscrosoft to help us 'make & market' these CDs. In fact, they were just paying us an amount of money we couldn't refuse.
This is human nature, not evil nature. Yes, it is disgusting and must be fought. I'd finish by saying that I don't think big corporations are likable, because they always end up abusing their position. Small is beautiful! |
| Tue 04 Mar 11:26 | Anonymous | Sorry 147, you are evil. Not everyone would sell out to Microsoft for money. Don't market your flimsy morals here. |
| Wed 05 Mar 11:18 | Anonymous | ha ha...
the two posts that accuse the second post of 'the fallacy of logical attack' and 'poisoning the well' are truly worthy of positions in the GOP or at least as talking heads on Fox TV. Does anybody else get tired of such hypocrisy? Anti-intellectualism is a tool for maintaining consumer cultures or preserving a state of imbalance. What do you want to be today? |
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| PageRank 2.0 | Tue 04 Mar |
| So switch from mild speculation to wild speculation, my guess is that Google is experimenting with english language technology via content targeted advertizing on Blogger weblogs. Later on english language processing will be good enough (and fast enough), to be applied to the english language documents on the web, and Google will start powering search results with it. |
| Wed 05 Mar 11:13 | Gerald | IMHO associative search technologies, bayesian inference, neural networks etc would give significant improvements to content classification and therefore may lie behind googles new algoritm. Hopefully this efforts are not primarily advertisement driven. |
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| Usability Glossary | Sat 01 Mar |
| This page allows you to browse or search the Usability First glossary, which currently has 1050 active terms! (Comments: HCI Bibliography) |
| Mon 03 Mar 11:26 | Anonymous | It's useful to anyone who is learning about usability. This industry needs to speak to each other, not to clients, if it wants to learn methodology. |
| Tue 04 Mar 21:14 | Lydia | Dang, what a neat link! Instant bookmark. |
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| Building Communities With Software | Mon 03 Mar |
| (Joel On Software) But requiring registration does NOT improve the quality of the conversation or the average quality of the participants. If you look closely at the signal-to-noise ratio on the Joel on Software forum, you might start to notice that the noisiest people (i.e. the people who post the most words while contributing the fewest ideas) are often the long time, hard core members who visit the forum every ten minutes. |
| Mon 03 Mar 13:05 | Anonymous | Joel is flat wrong about message previews.
a) *If* most people don't use it, that doesn't make it worthless. It serves a function for some people. I doubt he has any basis for his original claim.
b) Carefully reviewing a message in the original posting window is troublesome for long messages because the whole message is not on screen all at once. The lack of a preview doesn't make me more cautious. It just means everyone has to live with my numerous typos that would have been fixed if you'd provided me a preview.
c) The preview is a time to force the reader to pause and review his words. Hot heads may cool a little. Fast typers may realize they wrote gibberish. Typo gluttons may see the error of their ways.
If Joel doesn't like previews, he should do like WebWord. Offer both options when posting a message. |
| Mon 03 Mar 15:12 | Lydia | Thats.... interesting. Prior to this article he made a big deal about how he was going to put something out about the message boards, but you had to subscribe to get it because he wasn't posting it online. My first reaction: I'm kinda ticked. Why did I bother giving up my e-mail address? |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:00 | Anita Rowland | Hi, Lydia! Glad you told me you were posting here.
Joel says he posted a 'sanitized' version, and I do see that one of the topics that might have truly annoyed his current posters was left out (towards the end). I wonder if anyone will talk about that in his forum? |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:09 | Anonymous | 'Building Communities with Software'?
More like, 'About Joel's Forum'. Sure not the high-level article I was waiting for, being involved in building a community-based site.
I disagree with several of his points.
Email from a forum that someone has replied is a good thing. You want the person to come back to the forum, don't put the reply in the email, just send the flag. Otherwise they'll forget they ever posted.
Quoting has been a good thing on other boards I frequent - especially those answering technical questions. Often the reply is just to a specific part of the post.
For my money, the relatve success or failure is more dependent on the mix of people that end up building the community at a given site. A good group of people will create good stuff regardless of the features and functionality of the board. |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:19 | Lydia | Hey, Anita! Yeah, I noticed the 'sanitized' announcement when I went back to his site just a minute ago, and I see the part you are talking about (ha!). OK, worth my e-mail address. Now to read the rest of the article... |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:31 | MadMan | I'm subscribed to his list, and I haven't got any email yet. Sucks. Yet to read the article, but I'm not particularly fond of Joel's forum 'features'. I think that for a guy who wrote a book on UI design, his only explanation for not implementing some required features is that 'It's my board and I've got my reasons'. Well, actually he tries to couch it as a 'feature', but that's the real reason. If he had done some usability testing, he might have changed his mind. |
| Mon 03 Mar 17:09 | Lydia | He's pretty up-front that he wants certain annoying behaviors to be absent from his forums and he's willing to engineer the outcome if he has to by making it difficult for people to do something. (Example: leaving message threads out of the reply screen so people stop quoting what has already been posted.)
I liked a lot of what he had to say. You have to admit that the forum is easy to use, even if it isn't practical for the types of discussions people normally want to have.
I always thought he didn't add certain things because the forum was just a low priority. I mean, if I were in his shoes I wouldn't give further development a second thought, but FCS has added extremely useful features such as hiding the e-mail address of people who post by using a form to handle direct e-mail replies. It encourages people to post with a contact e-mail, since it would be hidden to anyone who responded to them and they could choose whether to continue the conversation off-line.
Madman, he did mention that forwarding the e-mail to individuals is OK. I'll forward it to you in a bit! |
| Tue 04 Mar 06:22 | Mac | I find Joels arrogance quite refreshing in his role as the Design Dictator.
But, I do prefer the Webword approach, where censorship appears to be frowned upon and the views of posters seem to be taken into account.
Whenever I am working on some software that involves monitoring of people I always try to apply these principles: All monitoring must apply to everyone, and all data collected must be publically available to everyone involved.
This would mean that any messages that were censored would be available to be viewed by anyone. There couldn't be anu 'secret deleting' however sensible it seemed.
PS. We are off to Egypt tomorrow for a week to celebrate our 10th wedding anniversary. This means I will be quieter for a while and won't be updating my stuff for a week or so. |
| Tue 04 Mar 06:43 | sherlock_yoda | Often usability is about fitting software to human needs or capabilities (or frailties). However, Joel shows how you can use knowledge about how people interact with systems to encourage behaviour desired by the builder of the software (in this case the discussion forum). Thinking through use cases you can see opportunities for influencing human behaviour not just fitting the way people currently behave.
Sherlock rambling old Yoda |
| Tue 04 Mar 08:50 | Anonymous | Mac, kiss the pyramids for us, and lose the accent for your own safety. |
| Tue 04 Mar 11:01 | Lyle Kantrovich | I read Joel's article, and think he has some good points to consider. I think how much you buy into his arguments has a lot to do with what your assumptions around a community are.
How different would you expect the following communities to be?
- A online discussion group for anarchists
- A support forum for a software beta-test group
- An open source project management discussion area
- A food-safety discussion group for restaurants sponsored by the makers of 'Lysol' anti-bacterial products
I think the needs of the users are different in the examples above - so the features offered might differ. (e.g. the open source project might want to integrate discussion with bug tracking) I also think the goals of the host/sponsor are different. (e.g. Lysol doesn't want to get sued because someone follows inaccurate recommendations on food safety on their site.)
I think censorship can be a good thing - it improves signal to noise ratio, and helps protect the brand of the host, and the brand of the community. Censorship can get heavy-handed, but hey, the web is a free marketplace, and users can always look for other forums. The quality (and hence utility) of the community is protected by good moderators.
Whether or not you agree with Joel, I think it's clear he has reasons for the way his community is designed and moderated - how many communities have failed because they just installed some BBS software and had no real purpose or goals for their community?
How would you measure community success? Is it based on # of posts, quality of posts, value delivered, or freedom of expression? More rants and flame-wars usually don't mean more success in my experience.
P.s. I also like the preview/post options, but sometimes I think I spend too much time previewing/editing my posts. |
| Tue 04 Mar 13:39 | Lydia | Happy Anniversary, Mac! Have a good time. |
| Tue 04 Mar 14:28 | Mac | Thanks Lydia.
Anon: I won't need to hide my accent, as all the Egyptians I have met are very friendly. I think that I would be more at risk if I visited Florida. We visited Eqypt 10 years ago on our honeymoon (Gulf War I) and there was no anti-western feeling amongst the vast majority of Egyptians. A number of brave Egyptians who organised anti-war protests in Egypt have been arrested and tortured by the Egyptian Government who are very anxious to keep a lid on any internal dissent, as well as keeping on the right side of the United States.
Apologies for the off-topic post. Perhaps Joel would delete it! |
| Tue 04 Mar 15:55 | Anonymous | Mac, it's not the vast majority of Egyptians you have to worry about. It's the handful of militants in any country that are the concern. Even militants in Egypt who are not Egyptian. |
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| 2003 And Beyond | Tue 04 Mar |
| Technology trends that will affect your business and how you do business. Warning: very little of the following is speculation. Most of it has already been announced and is being implemented. |
| Tue 04 Mar 13:52 | Jeff Albro | Wow, what a horrible future. Hi did miss one bright point, Mozilla, which is going to start eating away at Internet Explorer's share.
I just tell people 'It blocks pop-up ads' and then they want it.
See www.mozilla.org
-Jeff |
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| WebWord Comment | Wed 26 Feb |
| The new World Trade Center design has been chosen. I wonder how the final design was picked. What happens behind the scenes exactly? |
| Mon 03 Mar 11:02 | Manu Sharma | Rating is a great idea for moderation. But there are a couple of important things to consider.
1] users shouldn’t be allowed to see what others rated – to counter the herd instinct
2] final decision should be left to the moderator - people sometimes tend to sway in emotion
Rating is really the answer for those who are clueless how to moderate a list. It is surprising that it doesn’t find any takers.
Another way is to have implicit rules and follow them without bias. Here a relevant one form HTMLhelp’s policies of using their forum.
Respect Others
Show respect to other BBS posters. Do not use inflammatory language or swearing. Do not be abusive or rude. Feel free to disagree with others, but do not attack, harass or embarrass other participants.
In turn, please do not assume disrespect where there is none. Messages can be respectful and helpful even when they are terse, or when they raise issues without offering a specific solution.
Adam’s post was indeed...how would he put it, indecorous? |
| Mon 03 Mar 12:18 | Anonymous | I vote for John to allow himself the liberty to remove posts he deems unworthy of Webword. It's his site, and he can (and should) do what is necessary to keep the conversations focused and relevant. |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:20 | Anonymous | You ought to feel free to censor anything posted under your domain. But publish the rules. This will let you take proper care of your brand - and site credibility - while still enabling open discussion. That´s not really censorship, just management. |
| Mon 03 Mar 16:30 | Manu Sharma | Just read Lyle's post again. To clarify, when I mentioned rating I was referring to user rating - a mechanism through which users may rate a post on a given scale.
I was not referring to a rating system in which the moderator specifies the level of unacceptable/acceptable content of a post. |
| Mon 03 Mar 17:48 | JB | Why sensor something...censoring only ends up skewing reponses to the moderators thoughts and that is not the way to encourage free thought.
What do you sensor, the original comment or those that have taken offense or those that vehemently complain about the comment. |
| Mon 03 Mar 18:28 | Anonymous | This isn't a commune. WebWord is a slice of John's mind, and a few other people whom he let enter his portal to speak for him. It's OK for John to tell a user he doesn't appreciate their posts and to tell the user to go away, banning IPs if necessary, so that no user becomes a puppet master.
When people are rude they exert their dominance over the rest of us (the victim, as well as the crowd watching) as a means to shut people up and have only one viewpoint known. John, as moderator, is responsible for looking out for us so that the discussions remain open. |
| Mon 03 Mar 22:56 | Lydia | Well said, Two Thumbs Up. Succinct and direct.
I know the word 'censorship' has bad connotations, but I think there is a difference between censorship for personal reasons and censorship that facilitates community involvement.
For instance, if I run a celebrity chat board, but I hate Don Knotts and I always remove references to him or pictures people post of him, that is censorship for my own personal reasons. However, if I remove a picture depicting a violent act or ask flamers to cool it, I am doing so to create a forum many different people can feel safe to visit, read, and discuss topics in.
Further, subject matter should be considered. If my forum is about sex, I wouldn't necessarily remove sexually explicit pictures, but I would if my forum is about quilting and I want my visitors to stick around.
I think part of it is that you have to be able to trust the moderator. Is he always going to remove things for his own interest, or is he going to consider the community? John has been pretty laid back so far, and I trust that if he does censor something it will be because it might negatively impact the community. |
| Tue 04 Mar 10:24 | Tim | If rudeness and nogoodniks run unchecked on WebWord, I see no reason to participate in the discussions. Much is ambiguous in this world, but bullies stick out like a sore thumb. If John doesn't stand up for us, WebWord is no longer a fun and productive environment. |
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| Fake Police Cars | Wed 26 Feb |
| Ukranian traffic police have decided to use imitation as a method of preventing speeding and hope to reduce the number of car accidents. |
| Tue 04 Mar 06:06 | Paul Nattress | In the UK they put boards, painted in the fluorescent colours seen on the sign of a police car, on motorway flyovers. From a distance (and at 90mph!) they look real enough to slow the traffic down.
To tie this in with the web, one could say that as long as the front end of the site looked like it had a clever back-end, then it could have quite a basic, manually driven back-end.
I worked for a company that took credit card payments over the web. It looked like a proper e-commerce solution but in reality, the credit card details were sent via a secure email to a lady downstairs who manually entered them into a card payment machine. They still do that now I believe.
So, as long as it looks like the real thing, and it works, we're all happy right? |
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| Benefit From It | Fri 28 Feb |
| If a web site or a system isnt usable, no amount of artistry or technical cleverness will entice people to use it. (Comments: What do you think about dashes in URLs?) |
| Mon 03 Mar 04:39 | Philip Chalmers | I thought 'coned.com' (Frank's posting) was about places where traffic movement was restricted by roadworks. |
| Mon 03 Mar 09:16 | David Wertheimer | One upon a time I knew of an ISP at www.wearenthosting.com. |
| Mon 03 Mar 23:44 | MadMan | Good one, but I've got a better one. There was once this e-commerce site on the Internet that sold software. It was called Soft4U.com (deceased now, I'm afraid.)
Well, I guess they decided to expand into the computer hardware business too, but I don't think the marketing team put too much thought into it, because the URL of the new site was Hard4U.com
Yes, you'd think somebody would've noticed. |
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| WebWord Comment | Wed 26 Feb |
| Before you send me another freakin chain letter, go to Snopes. While you are there, check out the navigation and the icons. Do you like it, or not? |
| Mon 03 Mar 08:40 | Brian | I rely on Snopes all the time when friends and relatives forward junk e-mail. Sure, the icons are silly, but the content is valuable enough that the 'cartoony' appearance is irrelevant. What matters is the search engine--right there on the home page, and it works very well.
The other major reference site I use for hoaxes, UrbanLegends.com, is far less usable because the only visible navigation is a dropdown list of predefined topics. There ARE some search options at the bottom of the page, but they're confusing--who cares if I want to search the Archive, the AFU, or (bizarrely) the AFU FAQ? Nielsen has already covered this topic, people; advanced and multiple search options serve only to confuse, not improve.
When I see a suspicious message and want to cite an authority in my debunking reply, I always turn to Snopes first. |
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